Mashpee is a New England town in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 12,946 at the 2000 census.

For geographic and demographic information on specific parts of the town of Mashpee, please see the articles on Mashpee Neck, Massachusetts, Monomoscoy Island, Massachusetts, New Seabury, Massachusetts, Popponesset, Massachusetts, Popponesset Island, Massachusetts, Seabrook, Massachusetts and Seconsett Island, Massachusetts.

History
Following King Phillip's War, the Wampanoag of the mainland were resettled with the Saconnet, or brought, together with the Nauset, into the praying towns in Barnstable...

Mashpee is a New England town in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 12,946 at the 2000 census.

For geographic and demographic information on specific parts of the town of Mashpee, please see the articles on Mashpee Neck, Massachusetts, Monomoscoy Island, Massachusetts, New Seabury, Massachusetts, Popponesset, Massachusetts, Popponesset Island, Massachusetts, Seabrook, Massachusetts and Seconsett Island, Massachusetts.

History
Following King Phillip's War, the Wampanoag of the mainland were resettled with the Saconnet, or brought, together with the Nauset, into the praying towns in Barnstable County, Massachusetts. In Massachusetts, Mashpee, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod, was the biggest Indian reservation. Mashpee was settled by English colonists in 1658 with the assistance of the missionary Richard Bourne from the neighboring town of Sandwich. In 1660 the Wampanoag were allotted about there, and beginning in 1665 they governed themselves with a court of law and trials.

In the year 1763 Mashpee was constituted a plantation by the king of England, against the will of the native Wampanoags. The natives were given the right to elect their own officials to maintain order. However, the population of the plantation declined steadily due to the conditions placed upon them. The area governed by the Mashpee tribe was integrated into the district of Mashpee in 1763, but in 1788 the state revoked their ability to self-govern, which it considered a failure. It then appointed a committee to supervise, consisting of five white-only members.

A certain degree of self-government was returned to the Indians in 1834, and although the Wampanoag were far from completely autonomous. Wampanoag land was divided up in 1842, with 2,000 acres (8 km²) of their 13,000 acres (53 km²) distributed in parcels to each family. Many laws attest to constant problems of encroachments by whites, who stole wood from the reservation. It was a large region, once rich in wood, fish and game, and therefore desirable for the whites. Some had trouble ignoring the constantly growing community of non-whites, and so the Mashpee Indians had more conflicts with their white neighbors than the other Indian settlements in the state.Handbook of North American Indians. Chapter: Indians of Southern New England and Long Island, late period, p. 178ff; The Seaconke Wampanoag Tribe webpage]; Mashpee Wampanoag Nation webpage]; Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head Aquinnah webpage] Despite these attempts at self-rule, the Wampanoags lost their land, and Mashpee was incorporated as a town in 1870 the second-to-last town on the Cape to do so (other than Bourne, Massechusets).